Rick Swartz
Background * Candidate in the May 2007 D-party primary for Allegheny County Executive against Dan Onorato. Insights * GSPC Q & A from April 2007 Issues (harvested on 3-31-07) A real Democrat listens. Leadership takes many forms. A coach leads a team to a championship game. A teacher inspires a group of students to explore their artistic interests. An employer gets his hands dirty on occasion to better appreciate what his workers do on a regular basis. There is one trait that is common to leadership: an ability to listen and, subsequently, to motivate a group of people in pursuit of a common goal. Dan Onorato has done a good job of listening to taxpayers in his role as fiscal steward for Allegheny County. But I think county government overall can do even better. It would have been good, for instance, if we had consulted with taxpayers, riders, and other stakeholders before the Port Authority proposed its drastic service cuts. Perhaps the citizenry would have let us increase the county’s contribution to the Port Authority so that entire neighborhoods would not be left without service, or the airport flyer eliminated. And we must take on the challenge of expanding light rail transit as the system of the future for the county. Let’s begin the conversation today about how and when it can be extended from Downtown to the airport, and then perhaps through the Mon Valley, or out to the North Hills. I am proposing we suspend any further work on the North Shore Connector project, the light rail extension from Downtown to the stadiums, until we can piece together this larger strategy. If it can somehow be made to fit within that larger strategy, then it becomes part of it, and not simply the stand-alone project that it is at present. It would have been good, too, if we had consulted taxpayers as we entered into negotiations with the Penguins’ ownership over a new Mellon Arena. Perhaps they would have given the county the green light to put some money into the project to help with, say, infrastructure costs demanded by a new facility. But we didn’t ask in this case either, whether it be through public referendum, or a series of town hall meetings across the county. This style of leadership leaves the impression that we’re afraid to go to the public on the tough issues for fear of what they may tell us. The county Executive needs to be willing to sell his or her solutions on the larger challenges to the public, and let them be the ultimate arbiters. We don’t need to ask their opinion just once every four years. We should all know where the money goes. When we make a budget in our personal lives, we start with a set of figures. We see how much we are making, how much we are spending, and what we are getting in return. The county makes financial decisions in much the same way. If information on the county’s financial operations were more readily accessible to all of its citizens, it would provide valuable insights about our collective budget, too. But few county residents understand the nuts and bolts of its $700 million budget. No budget hearings are televised, or broadcast over the Web. How much do we spend on the jail? On the courts? On contracts with human service providers? How much comes from the pockets of county taxpayers? What have been the trends for local revenue collection over the last 5 years? Are we able to create important reserves or savings? If not, then how do we budget for long-term or capital needs? How dependent are we on the state or federal government for our budgetary solvency? Much of this is unknown to the average person. Rarely are county residents involved in “budget-making”, because it is an intricate and time-consuming process. This is especially true in the case of the various quasi-governmental authorities that also do business in our behalf. In those few instances when the county asks for “input”, we often have to rely on gut feelings, guesswork, and snippets of financial information to contribute anything of value. Transparency is badly lacking. If we ask people for their advice, but give them a paucity of information ahead of time, what can we expect to hear in the way of meaningful input? It is easy for the county Executive to fall into this habit, and for citizens to become indifferent to, or disillusioned with, the democratic process. We bemoan low rates of voter turnout, but we often fail to engage people when it counts. How much do you know about the state of the county’s public housing authority? The county’s citizens should know what their options really are. If expenses are rising continually, but revenues are not, what problems or dangers does this pose for us in the immediate future? The not so-distant future? When the county makes decisions in response to these questions, it does so with our money. The county Executive deserves to have the highest-quality input that we as citizens can offer. We need solid, reliable information so that we can aid the county in rising to the challenges that confront it. Because economic growth in Allegheny County has not been consistent and across-the-board, the county Executive is faced with difficult choices. There has to be an open process to weighing the pros and cons of each choice, particularly when someone stands to be hurt in the end. The mass transit crisis is the latest case in point. Key stakeholders could actually have been inspired to work together, through a commission or other vehicle towards a set of proposals that the county Executive could then have proposed to the Port Authority board, to Governor Ed Rendell, and to the public at-large. If at some point, difficult recommendations had to be made that would “reform” mass transit operations, at least we would have had the benefit of knowing what the facts were, and how our system functions when compared to those of other similarly-populated urban centers. Few county residents, including myself can speak intelligently on this subject today. Governmental budgeting can become be a zero-sum game when revenue growth is flat, and expenses continue to rise. If you add anything to one sector to address an emergency, you must take away from another. Fiscal prudence is always good, and Dan Onorato has shown he understands this. But we sometimes can oversimplify the solution to fiscal problems when we conclude that the only solution is to cut back services or initiatives in the face of flat or declining revenues. So if we cut jobs, say, in the assessment office in order to balance the county budget, and then find that we can no longer do the job of assessing property values promptly or accurately, have we gained or lost something in the process of building a budget? If we hold down jail expenditures, even in the face of over- crowding are we doing the public any good in the long run? If we lay off staffing any county department, can we rest comfortably knowing that the work those individuals did will be picked up by those who remain? This is not an argument to never accept the layoff of county workers as part of a solution to a budgetary quandary. But we as citizens of the county need to better understand not only what savings may be gained, but what opportunities may also be lost when we accept the decisions that the county Executive and Council make in the budgeting process. Lets fix the assessment system once and for all. Can we as county residents strive for a property assessment system that stresses tax “fairness”, as opposed to tax “freezes”, the system now firmly in place, thanks to the current county Executive? An assessment freeze seems like an effective strategy to hold down government (and school district) spending in the near term, which may suit the popular mood just fine. However, if it creates inequities that only worsen over time, is it a good strategy? If the taxable value of your home is fixed at $40,000, and the selling prices for houses in your neighborhood or borough are dropping, you are likely paying taxes on a value that is rooted in the past. If the baseline value of your home is $40,000, and selling prices for homes in your neighborhood are rising steadily, you are getting a double dip of good fortune. You are paying less than your neighbor for a house that may be comparable in many respects. And your property is likely appreciating in value, too, but you pay nothing more to enjoy this economic windfall. Even if millage rates were to rise, the new neighbor with the higher-valued home pays more still. The simple premise to tax fairness is to allow assessments to rise or fall based on changes in overall neighborhood value. However, we can still drive the ship of county government with a “safety belt” in place: we can decide to limit assessment increases on unsold property to no more than a fixed percentage each year. Even a 5% annual limit to increases in the valuation of any property would allow the county’s tax base to grow, as driven by market forces, without punishing taxpayers for the good fortune of living in communities or neighborhoods where values are steadily rising. We can also protect those whose property may not be worth as much because its condition, or that of the neighborhood around it. Let’s return to the use of field assessors to modify valuations that account for these variations. If a property is the object of substantial investment by its owner, we can even permit a deferral of an increase in assessment for a 3 to 5year period to encourage this type of activity throughout the county. If we stay with the current assessment system, we also set ourselves up for a decade of stagnant or declining tax revenue, to be followed by anger and despair if conditions force county government to give up this policy in favor of another assessment overhaul. No one wants to see retired homeowners forced to sell their homes because they cannot afford the taxes. No one wants to see tax assessments bounding upwards like superballs. Few want to see the poor asked to shoulder a disproportionate share of the tax burden. But a county Executive needs to think of tax policy as a three-legged stool: one leg based on income, another based on consumption or use, and a third based on wealth. To ignore wealth in the budgetary equation is to let the other two legs carry the weight of paying for increases in the cost of governmental functions pretty much alone. How can we hope to take care of an aging infrastructure, the recycling of vacant or abandoned property, sustaining an effective law enforcement and Criminal justice system, and other essential responsibilities of a progressive county administration? Until we straighten out the assessment system, I would suspend the use of tax-increment financing (TIF) in support of new development. We cannot justify writing off future tax revenues if we refuse to allow the tax base to grow in the incremental fashion that I am proposing. I would also recommend that Gov. Ed Rendell move forward with legislation that would require school districts to place proposed millage rate increases on the ballot, because the pressure on millage rates will be intense if property assessments in many districts are flat or declining. We can do a better job of listening to the public in this regard, too. Facing the most serious threats to a safe and secure future. We tend to think to law enforcement and criminal justice as the responsibility of the municipality (city, borough, township) we live in. Little does the average person realize how large a role the county plays in this scenario. From management of the jail, to the operation of Shuman Center, to the dispensation of justice at the Court of Common Pleas, the county is no bit player in protecting citizens from the worst among us. The incidence of crime, in many communities, has been the largest determinant of social stability, next to the system of public education and the degree to which norms and values that respect the peaceful, quiet enjoyment of one’s property manifest themselves. Allow me to highlight two classes of crime that have ripped large holes in the fabric of urban society, which extends to much of Allegheny County. The first class includes crimes of violence against persons. Whether it’s domestic violence, armed robbery, assault in its many forms, homicide, or attempted homicide, the first duty of government is to prevent violence from creating a state of daily terror in the lives of our residents or in our neighborhoods. How well the police can do this job in individual municipalities rests squarely on what happens at the county level after violent individuals are arrested, charged, and held for preliminary hearing. We have to know that those who were the victims of such actions, or their families, do not risk meeting their attackers again while the court calendar slowly wends its way to a trial. County government cannot be indifferent to the fear or intimidation perpetrated by those awaiting trial for violent offenses, or their friends. We need to know there will always be room at the County Jail, or at Shuman Center, to hold in check those who choose to live their lives as predators. But not all violent offenders can be held at either place indefinitely. We need for police to protect women and children especially, to not let “protection from abuse” orders fall through the cracks, but rather to require a system of house arrest for those awaiting hearings for violent offenses through the use of electronic bracelets. This means a system of communication between county and municipal officials that may be much greater than what exists today. To drive down the homicide rate, particularly in African-American communities, requires nothing less. We also need to use the federal court system more frequently when gun-related offenses are involved, so that stiffer sentences can be handed down, thus removing predators from our midst for a long time. The second class of crimes consists of those that bring down whole neighborhoods over time. We can argue over whether Criminal penalties for illicit drug use are having any real impact on the problem. But there can be little argument over the effect of the drug trade when it becomes a dominant attribute of life in the neighborhood. The emptying out of entire neighborhoods, both in Allegheny County and across the nation, can be traced to the social chaos wrought by the drug trade: random firing of weapons at any hour of the day or night; young men menacing neighbors or business owners who dare to question their activities; theft of property; robbery; untended children at home or on the street, living with empty refrigerators and in filthy conditions. The problem overwhelms municipal agencies, and requires greater leadership from the county in attacking it at the roots. We need better alternatives to taking drug dealers off the street than the traditional forms of incarceration. The idea of county-supported work “farms”, where private agencies can attempt to modify the attitudes and behaviors of nonviolent drug dealers, and rebuild their aptitude for education and job training, away from the peer groups that helped to spawn them, is an example of “pushing the envelope” in our criminal justice system. There has to be state support for such a solution, obviously, but it needs to be the county that crafts it. The same is true for dealing with the children trapped in these environments. The county’s Department of Children and Youth Services has to work hand in hand with the schools and law enforcement to quickly remove children from homes where a parent or guardian has been charged with drug trafficking, or with possession of an illegal weapon that often is close at hand for drug traffickers. Making life tougher for another form of predator. Spotting a crack dealer can be fairly easy. Spotting a predatory lender can be much harder. However, predatory lending, defined as making loans to individuals who cannot afford to repay them under the terms, rates, or conditions stipulated, can blight a community as badly as crack houses do. We have seen a four-fold increase in the number of Sheriffs Sales in Allegheny County since 1995, leaving many communities pockmarked with empty homes. Pennsylvania in general, and Allegheny County in particular, have been fertile territory for unscrupulous lenders. Our older neighborhoods are plagued by misleading offers (“government programs!”, “special development loans!”) that promise to help homeowners fix a leaky roof or leaning porch for no money down. Other predatory tactics offer refinancing to reduce personal debt that gobbles up the homeowner’s hard-won equity in the property. Within a short period of time, through a combination of fraud, hidden fees, balloon payments, and multiple rounds of refinancing, the house ends up in the hands of the lender or the county sheriff. It becomes boarded-up, an asset now turned into a liability, with taxes and trash accumulating. As documented in the Brookings institution’s “Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania”, the resulting “hollowing out” of our older, less affluent urban neighborhoods threatens the fiscal health of the surrounding county and, eventually, the entire state. By the time the property finds its way back into productive reuse, years may have elapsed. Our county can begin to crack down on predatory lenders by shining a much brighter light on their worst practices. The county Executive can take the battle to them by joining community groups in asking the state to do periodic, impromptu audits of the loan portfolios carried by those lenders who are licensed by the state Department of Banking, but are not subject to federal bank exams. These periodic audits would help to detect deceptive terms, fraudulent documentation, and shoddy underwriting standards, and hand out penalties for those who’ve abused their customers. We also need to encourage traditional banks and nonprofit lenders to offer products that enable borrowers to make necessary home repairs, or even consolidate debt, so that those with decent credit don’t fall victim to this trap. Short-term tax forgiveness can be another strategy for a county that would prefer to keep a house occupied while the owner works through the problems brought on by borrowing from unscrupulous lenders. A responsive society produces responsible citizens. “Personal responsibility” is a tough-sounding term for a good and satisfying way to live. Kids and adults take on personal responsibility when they have something to care about, and a sense that their actions matter. Laws alone cannot force individuals to feel personally responsible for their lives and surroundings. Elected officials today, at the county as well as other levels, need continuously to impress upon all citizens that there can be no excuse for an abdication of personal responsibility that, in turn, feeds a downward spiral of low expectations, hopelessness, and antisocial behavior. Schools need to be places that reinforce the high expectations that society has for each and every child. County leaders must make every effort to see that our schools build within our children a desire to leave with some skill, some competency, some aspiration that separates them from the culture of failure and victimhood that grips many poorer communities. We need to be sure that county-funded programs across a range of agencies are reaching significant numbers of severely poor households, and that life improving skills, and not poverty maintenance techniques, are being developed in those served by such programs. Audits by the county Controller and other departments need to go beyond the fiscal management of such programs, and measure how effectively they are at breaking the cycle of poverty within families. There are often people in low-income communities who can be the fulcrum for such inspirational and motivational programs. But it’s the county’s task to ensure that their interventions are well-managed, and the results well-documented. A real Democrat isn’t afraid to fail. As Democrats, we should be committed, above all else, to reinforcing the pillars of a strong democracy. This doesn’t occur without some risks. First, we should make our deliberations and our actions as open and transparent as possible. Secondly, when major issues loom, we should bring citizens forthrightly into the process by which we ultimately decide their fate. Finally, despite our personal ideologies, we should exercise only one bias: one that strongly favors listening to disparate voices before we arrive at a consensus on what needs to happen next, even if it means having to alter our course in the end. If consensus proves too difficult to achieve, then the use of public referendum is always an option open to us. The late Mayor of Pittsburgh, Richard Caliguiri, was fond of saying that he was not the repository for all knowledge in every circumstance of public life. Allegheny County is struggling to hold onto its population today. We need to be willing to take some chances, even if we turn out to be wrong in our assumptions. A real Democrat opens up the process of governing. The job of county Executive involves countless meetings and endless dealings. Thanks to sunshine laws, many of these deliberations are done in public. But, human nature being what it is, government officials grow to envy the relative privacy their corporate counterparts enjoy. So there is a temptation to make critical deals in private, and then announce the solution to an ever-waiting media, who dutifully report it as “done”. To illustrate the point, the county is committing to doing something to arrive at a deal to replace the aging Mellon Arena. This is not necessarily bad in and of itself. But the county Executive of late has been giving us nothing more than the perfunctory acknowledgements that the negotiations “are progressing”. We are left to guess as to what we will ultimately be committed to doing to support a new arena. A far more preferable position would have been to arm Dan Onorato, through a process of open discussion, with what, we, as county taxpayers, were prepared to do to achieve the objective, and then let him do the hard bargaining in our behalf. If we are to support such a project, we need to sell the public on why and how. Instead, the county taxpayer is the proverbial figure in the photo far in the deep background. Gov. Ed Rendell is heavily involved, for better or worse, because he somehow determined that the state could be good for $7.5 million a year for 30 years. So we’ve had to cede a good portion of the negotiating to him. The recent US Airways deal, with another $16 million in state and county commitments, is still another example of what I call the closed-door approach to government deal-making. A county Executive can leave people hanging for as long as he feels is necessary. He can occasionally be upset with those who question the substance or the style of his administration. He can even exert pressure behind the scenes to bend at least the Democratic members of county Council to do his bidding. And, in the end, be can expect that someone might choose to run against him who is willing to adopt a whole, different method altogether. That’s what I am promising to you. Why am I running? I voted for Dan Onorato in 2003. My supporters, by and large, are also ones who voted for Dan. We have found him to be smart, trustworthy, and hard-working. We know he doesn’t shy away from the hard decisions, and even relishes making them, He is clearly a person of substantial influence in Allegheny County today. But is this enough? By running for county Executive, I’m giving you a chance to decide if this is all you want. We have a county Executive today who, carrying on in a long tradition, draws on the input and knowledge of a relatively small (and trusted) circle of advisers to carry out his vision for Allegheny County. Do you agree with his vision, with his set of priorities, with how he goes about engaging ordinary people in the decisions he has to make? Do you feel you’re being heard? How much do you know about county government? Have you bothered to look for details about its budget on the county’s Website? Do you know if the resources the county has available to it are sufficient to meet the challenges confronting it? Is it important to you that you remain a resident of Allegheny County? Do you plan to raise your children here? To retire here? An election is a good time to ask these questions. Without a candidate to oppose Dan Onorato, voters would be having this dialogue with only themselves. I wanted to hear a dialogue, a debate, that’s out in the open, that asks of the county Executive what we in the city ask everyday of the Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh: what role does our government need to have in our everyday lives? And to ask that question continually. That’s why I’m running. I think every county resident is better served when this happens. I’m asking for your vote only if you find your answers to these questions to be largely in the negative. Then you’ll be doing your part to push for a more responsive, more effective, more open county government. Swartz